squirreleater

Posted 18 June 2010 - 09:11 PM

In a rather strange more, HTC have issued a cease and desist letter to a website that offers roms for uploading.

The website Shipped roms has been issued with a cease and desist letter by HTC. They state the usual legal guff about 'intellectual property' and 'artwork' etc etc. Seems a strange move as many many site have for many years offered modified and standard roms for uploading and use .Windows mobile has been kept going long after it's sell by date thanks to rom cookers.Quite why they have done this I guess we will never know, and why they have picked on a small site that has only been running a few weeks as well? You would have thought the likes of XDA would be a better target if you want to stop this sort of activity. I guess this would apply to sense roms and not vanilla android.

Edit:I've pasted a bit from engadget below, it explains things a bit better.Plus I've changed the title to be less dramatic!

Quote HTC:"While HTC tries to take a hands off [approach] about the modder / ROM chef community, this site's sole purpose [is] to make HTC's content available for download from a source other than HTC. That content is not just the open source parts and kernels of Android but all of the software that HTC itself has developed. This is a clear violation of our copyrights and HTC needs to defend itself in these cases."

Engadgets take on this:In other words, these guys are just really against hosting official ROMs on unofficial servers. Anyone can dump a ROM from a phone and flesh it out, so we can't imagine there's any competitive concern -- and no first-party site makes so many firmware builds available for so many devices in such a concise, well-organized way as Shipped ROMs is doing. Ultimately, it's HTC's property -- it seems like they're probably in the legal right here -- but the unsavory PR effect with some of the company's staunchest enthusiasts makes the endeavor more trouble than it's worth, we'd argue. Tread carefully, HTC.

I write to you on behalf of HTC Corporation (“HTC”), a Taiwanese company with a global business, who is the owner of certain intellectual property (“HTC¡¦s Intellectual Property”). It is our understanding that you are responsible for the hosting of an internet webpage located at http://shipped-roms.com (the “Site¡¨). HTC has also recently learned that the Site contains software/ROM related to HTC¡¦s Intellectual Property which entails illegal copying of HTC¡¦s original art work.

We have very strong reasons to believe that the HTC Intellectual Property was illegally obtained by fraudulent means. The subject dissemination and publication of HTC¡¦s Intellectual Property is in clear violation of HTC¡¦s legal rights and is an infringement of the HTC¡¦s copyrights, goodwill, as well as the other intellectual rights. The continuing distribution of HTC¡¦s Intellectual Property without authorization has constituted a serious criminal offence under the Copyright Act in the U.S. and the EU and other countries where similar laws are enforced.

As you would expect, HTC is the owner and the use of the copyrighted work described above has not been authorized by the owner. By publishing and displaying the Intellectual Property on the Site, you, as the publisher, along with the information source are infringing HTC¡¦s Intellectual Property rights, including but not limited to causing HTC irreparable harm.

For the above reasons, HTC requests that you immediately remove the Intellectual Property from the Site or of all infringing works derived from the Intellectual Property. You shall desist from this or any other infringement of HTC¡¦s rights in the future.

The above information is true and correct. If we have not received an affirmative response from you within two weeks indicating that you have fully complied with these requirements, we shall take further legal action, and pursue all means necessary to protect HTC¡¦s legal and equitable rights. HTC reserves all its rights against you, including legal and equitable remedies.

TheUnlockr

Posted 18 June 2010 - 09:56 PM

This is only pertaining to HTC's original ROMs. They don't want the original shipping ROMs to be able to be downloaded from anywhere but directly from HTC themselves is all. Here is what they said in reply to Engadget asking them about the cease and desist.

"While HTC tries to take a hands off [approach] about the modder / ROM chef community, this site's sole purpose [is] to make HTC's content available for download from a source other than HTC. That content is not just the open source parts and kernels of Android but all of the software that HTC itself has developed. This is a clear violation of our copyrights and HTC needs to defend itself in these cases."

Read the first line, they are well aware of custom ROMs etc. they respectively look the other way / don't care.

squirreleater

Posted 18 June 2010 - 10:56 PM

This is only pertaining to HTC's original ROMs. They don't want the original shipping ROMs to be able to be downloaded from anywhere but directly from HTC themselves is all. Here is what they said in reply to Engadget asking them about the cease and desist.

"While HTC tries to take a hands off [approach] about the modder / ROM chef community, this site's sole purpose [is] to make HTC's content available for download from a source other than HTC. That content is not just the open source parts and kernels of Android but all of the software that HTC itself has developed. This is a clear violation of our copyrights and HTC needs to defend itself in these cases."

Read the first line, they are well aware of custom ROMs etc. they respectively look the other way / don't care.

jdwis

Posted 22 June 2010 - 11:49 AM

jdwis

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Just a thought..
I feel its a kind of thing from ii-Phoone people who might be trying let Android people down just because Android is unbeatable?
To my understanding, mainly Android is based on Linux Kernel & Linux Kernel is under GNU and these whole thing is based on Open Source which means modifying the code is not the issue here.
Its just the original ROM is hosted on some server not authorised by HTC which seems quite ok, nobody generally would like their work hosted some where else unless without permission, in that case they should have hosted it on the servers which does not care much for the Right & Regulation Acts etc...